From George Stubbs’s golden vision of the labourer’s place in society to Ford Madox Brown’s heroically monumental celebration of manual labour, artists gave individual interpretations of work, as Michael Hall reveals

+ WHAT CAN THEY TEACH US ABOUT MANAGING RISK AT SEA

The most sensual pictures of women sprang from Ovid’s verses, the Aeneid gave Turner his longest-lasting subject matter and Edward Burne-Jones saw himself in Arthur’s deathless slumber. Carla Passino explores how literature influenced art

Michaelina Wautier is one of the most compelling rediscoveries in Baroque painting. Working in 17th-century Brussels, she tackled subjects usually reserved for men, producing still lifes, portraits an

Georges Seurat spent much of his short life painting the quietude of the Northern French coast, honing his rigorous technique on the play of light, sky and water

Exhibition of the week Anna Ancher: Painting Light ...